


Beauty lies (lost in another's dream)

by gloss



Category: Shitsurakuen | Paradise Lost
Genre: F/F, Wish Fulfillment, Yuri
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-01-10
Updated: 2011-01-10
Packaged: 2017-10-14 15:38:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 606
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/150820
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gloss/pseuds/gloss
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sora ruined everything Reiko worked so hard to build.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Beauty lies (lost in another's dream)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ember_reignited](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=ember_reignited).



She lies as easily as she breathes, as easily as fish slice through tides. Everything she has said, for years now, has been a lie. Reiko's beliefs are false, her convictions hollow.

She prefers it this way.

This way, she has taken the world's lies -- about women, about strength, about violence and revolt -- and wrapped them around herself. She dwells inside the lies.

She is weak, she is decorative, she can do nothing of substance: Lies.

She dwells here, hidden in plain sight, weak as a breeze, pretty as a princess, insipid and passive. She makes them true.

Sora's battle destroyed everything Reiko has assembled so patiently. All it took was one angry, impulsive girl (flushed cheeks, hair flying awry, stouthearted and sweetnatured) to ruin it all.

Reiko will never forgive her. She tells Sora so, and Sora simply laughs.

Gradually, that laughter burbles away until all that is left is Sora's smile, small white teeth and soft, wide lips.

She cocks her head and gives Reiko a puzzled smile. "But we want the same thing."

It is early morning; the fog has yet to burn off the tops of the trees that surround campus. Somewhere, a girl's scream abruptly cuts off.

Just an ordinary day in Utopia.

But nothing is ordinary, not any longer, not with Sora here. She smiles more widely, the longer that Reiko looks at her.

"We *do*," Sora insists. Her hair has been inadequately combed this morning (she shrugs off Koharu's offer, every morning, to help). There is a smudge of ink under one corner of her mouth.

Reiko switches her book bag to the other shoulder. Sora tries to help, managing to drop her own books and get her hand tangled in the straps while the bag bangs against Reiko's knees painfully before they finally untangle.

"I'm fine," Reiko tells her and turns to go before Sora says anything else. "I'll see you at breakfast."

"Reiko-san!" Sora grabs Reiko's hand and holds her in place. Her grip is surprisingly strong. "Wait for the others with me!"

Sora's little harem goes everywhere together; Reiko suspects that, if they could, they'd pile onto a single large futon every night to sleep, like a herd of puppies.

Sora would be in the middle, squashed flat by grinning, plump, squirming girls. She'd have a smile on her face broad as the horizon, and probably say something about dying and going to heaven.

Sora is predictable like that. Such devotion to a goal as impossible and ridiculous as hers -- liberate all the girls! As soon as possible! -- is only possible when the personality is as simple as Sora's.

"I just want to do what's right," she has said any number of times. She'll blink and press her lips together as her eyebrows jump up, as if what she wants is just the simplest thing in the world.

For Sora, it is.

For Reiko, standing here, nothing could be harder, farther out of reach, more absurd.

"Please?" Sora asks and squeezes Reiko's hand.

Reiko touches Sora's wayward hair and smooths it down. Sora's smile tilts and widens as she leans into the touch. Looking up at Reiko, her eyes round, the pulse jumping in the hollow of her throat, she seems no threat at all.

"All right," Reiko replies, and, when Sora blinks in surprise, "yes."

Sora hugs her suddenly, arms around Reiko's waist like a little kid, and tries to lift her off the ground.

"Thank you!"

She doesn't know what she has agreed to. She doesn't know if she's lying any longer.

Everything is so much simpler now. She doesn't know how she'll cope.

**Author's Note:**

> Title from Sonic Youth, [Beauty Lies in the Eye](http://www.metrolyrics.com/beauty-lies-in-the-eye-lyrics-sonic-youth.html).


End file.
